I was out yesterday evening, and saw several things that have been reported here. I saw the fences had been removed from the doors in front of the secondary entrance at Don Mills, as pleaseLRT showed above, and I presume that just happened yesterday. I saw trans running continuously (maybe not less than a minute apart, as kai said, but 4 minutes apart might be right). I was on a bus, after a 20 minute wait. I have often thought the 34 Eglinton might be running under deliberately degraded service over the last 10 years, so that when the LRT does open, it will look so much better by comparison. And by the way, on average, the bus was moving faster, but the train wasn't doing half bad.
I am always pessimistic about the opening date. Whenever anyone predicts line 5 might be opening soon, I always say, not a chance, not this year, maybe not even next year. But seeing all this activity, including that buses are using some stations (without passengers on board), it looks like they are actually trying to get everything ready. They are giving an appearance that if approval came from on high, they could just unlock the doors and hang up a sign, "open for business", and say, "Come on in!" Yes I know it's not that simple.
And yet we still don't have an official opening date. Unlike Finch West, we don't even have a rumoured opening date. It looks to me like there are 2 groups of people running things. One group is getting fed up, like the rest of us, and wants the line opened. The other group is saying, oh no, oh dear, we're too scared, we could never work up the courage to open this line, not now, not ever.
I think these 2 groups need to get together, and fight it out. Maybe they could agree to a coin toss. Maybe they could go out back and have a fistfight. Whatever they want.
As for my pessimism, I think I'll turn over a new leaf and have 50% hope that maybe the line will open this year, after all. Depending on which way the fistfight goes.
